Cloud and Big Data – what’s next?! A discussion panel with JP Rangaswami (Chief Scientist, Salesforce.com), Florian Leibert (Founder, Mesosphere), Jean Paul Schmetz (Chief Scientist, Hubert Burda Media), Werner Vogels (CTO, amazon), Aditya Agarwal (Vice President of Engineering, Dropbox), and Sonali De Rycker (Partner, Accel Partners).

What people wants? It’s simplicity and convenience, JP said. Adoption of Cloud was driven by convenience not by economics. The change came from people. If they are able to use things easily it’s successful.

Werner nods and adds that we’re not only have and had to transform the business, we have to transform IT – this is all powered by the cloud. Companies can now move much faster than ever before. The Cloud is a step of revolution for him.
The biggest issue, especially in Germany, is security. Who has access and how save is the data? But customers are saying security improved when they moved to cloud, is Werner’s experience.

“Cloud unleashed the power of entrepreneurship low costs for starting companies”

The cloud made it easier to set up software things and security is today no problem. Trusting Google, Dropbox or other services isn’t such a big thing, but who knows what will happen in 15 years? It’s not just for fun companies move to cloud, it should be biz reason (ROI).

“Analog commoditization stays. Digital commodities change…You still need to innovate and adapt.” (JP Rangaswami)
But what’s the future?

It’s not the hardware you will make money on. It’s not the software anymore. But it’s rather the software. It’s a long process of reinvention to become a customer-centered company. And security…

“If we assume most of critical data will reside in a cloud then code should move where the data is.”

Critical data is being stored in the cloud – data that is worth protecting! If someone breaks into your house you do not need more laws, you need a better lock, says Werner – that’s what we try to do. So, in 3-5 years everything will be encrypted. A huge industry might appear.

It will be intereting to learn about the Big Data aproach of major magazine media. The conference is a platform created by FIPP and VDZ, two major magazine media trade organizations. During the two day conference there will be two talks on Big Data.

• Jean-Paul Schmetz (Chief Scientist, Hubert Burda Media) will have a talk on Big Data in B2C Publishing.

• Michael Dell (Senior Vice President, IHS / Managing Director, IHS Jane’s, IHS) will have a talk on Big Data in B2B Publishing.